Beyond Fight, Flight or Freeze: Threat of Abandonment and Its Developmental Consequences: A 30-Year Longitudinal Perspective

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Our nervous system has an organized stress response system with different developmentally sensitive periods – the fear of abandonment and the fear of attack. Our 30-year longitudinal study has revealed the impacts of caregiver withdrawing behaviors on the development of the human nervous system and the long-term impacts that early disrupted attachment has on adulthood.

Key points:

• Two differently organized stress response systems, with different developmental sensitive periods, are likely to be active in human development: Fear of Abandonment and Fear of Attack.
• These systems motivate different but contradictory adaptive responses: fight, flight or freeze versus call and contact-seek.
• Withdrawing behaviors by the caregiver are associated with activation of fear of abandonment and subsequent role confusion in relation to the caregiver.
• Attachment disturbances, and caregiver withdrawal in particular, are associated with long-term deviations in amygdala and hippocampal development.
• Contributions of both early attachment disturbance and later childhood abuse need to be separately conceptualized in treatment approaches to complex trauma.